I’m a freelance designer who mostly works with early-stage startups and fintech companies. A couple of months ago a client came to me in panic mode: their current landing page looked dated and chaotic, the PageSpeed score was in the 50s, and conversions were flatlining. They had a funding round closing soon and needed a complete overhaul in under two weeks.
Budget was limited, timeline was brutal, so I skipped custom dev entirely and built it in Squarespace. Result: PageSpeed 96–98 on mobile, conversions up 38 % in the first ten days, and the client couldn’t stop smiling.
Here are the five dead-simple rules that did almost all the work.
Rule 1: Delete everything until it feels empty
The very first thing I do is open the old page and start removing sections until the designer in me gets nervous.
For this project, everything above the fold ended up being exactly three elements:
- One bold headline
- One short subhead
- Email field + “Start free trial” button
That’s it. No navigation bar, no logos, no social proof up top. We added those later, lower down. Ruthless subtraction is the fastest way to make something instantly feel premium.
Rule 2: Let people’s eyes group things for you
I just follow basic Gestalt principles.
Everything that belongs together (headline + subhead + form) got the same font, same weight, same spacing. Everything secondary (footer links, privacy policy) got pushed far away and turned light gray. Took ten minutes and suddenly the whole page felt organized without me really “designing” anything.
Rule 3: Whitespace is free and makes you look expensive
I always start with way too generous — 80–100 px between sections on desktop. Then I check on mobile and only pull it back if something actually breaks. Nine times out of ten it doesn’t. The client kept saying in our calls, “It feels so calm and professional now.”
Rule 4: Build a tiny design system in five minutes
My entire system for this project was:
- One typeface (Inter — already built into Squarespace)
- Spacing in multiples of 8px
- Four colors total: near-black text, off-white background, one brand blue, one mid-gray
Once those were set globally, every new block I added automatically matched. When they asked for a pricing page a few days later, I duplicated the template and was done in twenty minutes.
The primary CTA got:
- Largest size
- Boldest weight
- The only saturated color on the page
- The most breathing room
Everything else (secondary links, footnote text) got smaller and lower contrast. Heatmaps later showed roughly 75 % of people went straight to that main button.
Small finishing touches that took almost no time
- Soft shadows on cards instead of hard borders
- One gentle gradient overlay in the hero (Squarespace preset)
- Real customer photos instead of obvious stock images
Launched in 11 days from kickoff to live. Client was thrilled, I got paid on time, everybody happy.
If you’re a founder or marketer who just wants a clean, fast, high-converting marketing site without hiring an agency or learning code, Squarespace is still my go-to for exactly this kind of project. I’ve tried Framer, Webflow, custom Next.js builds… and for pure speed + polish on landing pages, I keep coming back.
Hope this helps someone out there. Less really is more — I have to remind myself of that every single project.
